I cannot leave a packet of cookies on the breakfast bar.
#1 Son claims Tiny Tyrant reached them. I doubt that somehow, but as I didn’t see I cannot confirm. Housework is clearly a bad thing 😂🤣
She’s sleeping soundly at nap time at least.
Seems to be an issue with the dishwasher, but it might just be cheap tablets:

Top propeller doesn’t appear to be spinning though, so we have reported it.
Debit cards arrived today. And the house application is progressing. Looks like we can’t sign before 01 September, and school for #1 Son apparently starts 30th August in the local districts but the DSC doesn’t think it’ll be a problem.

There was also father-son bonding in creating the new cat tree. #1 Son now appears to like the cat.

Which, given I found the bugger had peed on our duvet (one assumes when it was drying after the baby puking incident last week) is a good thing as she’s not currently my favourite animal-creature right now…﻿

Every time I try to pick her up to put her in the cot, her eyes fly instantly open and she screeches.

11:58:
Children claim to be hungry.

#1 Son ate better than the Tiny Tyrant 😱😱😱!
14:00 – the Tiny Tyrant passes out on me again.
15:00 – she wakes and is inconsolable.
16:00:
I cave and give her a banana but now she wants a second.
17:30: I manage to feed both children:

17:45(ish): Daddy gets home and hands me a glass of wine. First day as SAHM achieved.

The children are alive. I am still sane, and I even managed some halfway decent domestic goddess-ing.
All in all, I’m quite chuffed really.
(Although I still haven’t found the black crayon from earlier)

Did not really do much yesterday. We went out for lunch and #1 Son actually ate!
It was chicken nuggets and pasta in butter but heck, at least it was food!
The Tiny Tyrant also ate – mostly broccoli and ketchup but at least it was solid. We are wondering if she’s missing her toddler meals, so we have braved the cost (2 for $5 I mean seriously?!?!) to get a couple of Gerber meals. Shall see what her verdict is!
She spent most of yesterday doing this:
So we have added a dolly stroller to her Amazon wish list for Christmas/birthday as clearly she is ready for it!
She’s a cheeky bugger isn’t she? No she is not supposed to be on the table. We won’t talk about glass furniture with kids…

Having established lazy days are exhausting, we decided to go to the Science Museum today.
Unfortunately we only got around two sections before both children got overstimulated and fractious.
The honey bees were fairly awesome:

And the Tiny Tyrant enjoyed playing with the bee magnifier:

And the bees are free ranging:
#1 Son found an exhibition where they assembled a skeleton and tried to identify it:
Please note that the Tiny Tyrant cannot be outdone.
Oh, and it was a female Bonobo 👍🏻
Then there were baby chicks, which both kidlets found amazing.

I want to know what they do with them once they are 48 hours old though 🤔😒😕

We got as far as the Sci Fi exhibit where #1 Son loved the robots, both kids loved the dinosaurs and cars, and the Tiny Tyrant was enraptured by the floor panel that reacted when you walked on it:
​​

One thrilled toddler 👍🏻🤣😂
Unfortunately the visit went downhill at lunch after #1 Son shattered a water bottle while queuing and neither child ate lunch 🙄
So we returned home – but we did at least discover that Delta have found our stroller!!!!
I mean, it’s in Montana but they have at least located it right?

The kids get stir crazy so easily, so we decided to venture out for lunch at 12:00 then find a local playground to let them burn off energy.

While so doing, Jo got an email from the lovely Gigi (the previously mentioned DSC) that she could meet us at the local mall at 16:00 at Bank of America to sort out a joint bank account (I can’t get my own yet).

So in the quest for financial independence (well not really, but it’s how the hus-creature framed it to get me out of the house for a second time in one day when I’m feeling rough as a bear’s behind) off we went again.

The bank staff were lovely, and gave both children a sucker (lollipop). It’s not something we’ve let the Tiny Tyrant have before, but she saw her brother get one and her eyes lit up and went ‘ahhhhh Ammy, MINE’ so given we were there to supervise we chose to let her have it. She got the sour apple one, so I fully expected her to throw it on the floor in disgust.

Much delighting ‘nyum nyum nyum’-ing

Yes, she tangled it in her hair, and then dropped it on the floor, but she had a whale of a time with it before I was forced to dispose of the floor food.

So we are now the proud owners of a USA checking and separate savings account. I would be lying if I said that relying purely on the hus-creature for finances makes me comfortable, but I am still making a vital contribution to the family unit, and I get to watch the kidlets grow up , at least for the next few months.

I still want to earn my own money somehow, but I have time to think about what I want to do, rather than simply leaping blindly at the first office job that comes along.

As it took a while to finish the banking process, we decided to take the kids out for dinner. We thought we’d try The Cheesecake Factory again – but in a two-for-two, neither child ate properly.

BUT #1 Son ate an entire slice of pepperoni pizza, even though he didn’t like it, because that was the deal to earn dessert.

We grownups did not eat, but ordered a cocktail apiece and a slice of cheesecake when the kids had pudding. I spent most of the meal stopping the Tiny Tyrant from harassing people in the booth behind us, and telling her to stop throwing pizza at me… the joys of parenting.

It was yet another day where she waved, cooed and ‘hiya’d’ at every person she could. I am going to need to have a serious ‘Stranger Danger’ talk with this child before too long… and she is going to be trouble when she’s a teenager…

On the way home I heard her shout a random babble-word that I know means ‘hey, adults with me, I have seen a dog‘ so I looked around and saw a very pretty, heavily brindled, heavy set dog on a walking muzzle (important).

I went into my usual spiel about how we don’t approach or pet a dog without asking their mummy/daddy. The owner then commented that in his particular experience, it’s adults that tend to come running up and petting the dog. I asked about the muzzle not being a hint, and that’s when he told me the dog was half dingo.

Which very much explained why it looked somewhat odd. I mean, it was gorgeous, but yeah, not to be messed with. However when we walked past the close-by local dog park there were a couple of very yappy Pomeranian things that were clearly spoiling for a fight, and all the half-dingo pupper did was start gnawing and yanking on their lead very close to their owner.

Tiny Tyrant was much more bothered by the yapping – seems her dog fear is triggered more by noise than proximity!

One of the issues #1 Son faces as a result of Aspergers is food aversions.
His diet is so basic it makes me want to cry, but we’ve learned not to force it (and gummy multivitamins make me feel less of a failure).
But since we moved he’s seen something on PBS Sprout that made him ask to try smoothies.
So tonight we made:Banana Smoothie

He made it himself. He even chopped the bananas himself (with supervision from daddy).
He likes it!!!!*
The possibilities this opens for us are amazing!!!!
*So does Tiny Tyrant, but she likes most things – including her brother’s previously rejected chocolate and cinnamon pudding!

The Tiny Tyrant’s cough was so bad last night that she was sick. In our bed. A lot.
So I spent most of this morning trying to wash a duvet that ought to fit in the damn washing machine but doesn’t.
The cover is dry but the duvet itself is hanging over the shower to drip-dry. And Housekeeping came today so no fresh duvet cover for us darn it. But I have gotten it clean so it could be worse.
By 2pm the kids had major cabin fever so we thought we’d brave another trip to the mall…

Within ten minutes we decided that we cannot workwithout a stroller anymore.

£21 later and we have the world’s most awful yet functional stroller. The Tiny Tyrant was, surprisingly, very, keen to use it – guess she’s fed up of walking everywhere!

I finally got to spend a little time in Bath & Body Works (too easy to spend money in there!) and Teavana.
I have officially joined the ranks of pretentious herbal infusion drinkers:
Amusingly however so has the Tiny Tyrant 😂🤣😂🤣😂
She nommed up all the samples in the shop. Sadly #1 Son was not so keen, so can’t sneak extra fluids into him this way!
The Piña Colada flavour is not my scene, but the hus-creature likes it, so we will drink it first then try the others (2 out of the 4 were tried and liked in the shop so it’s not so bad).
The Tiny Tyrant also does not approve of this flavour – she’s more of a Strawberry Daiquiri girl 👍🏻
Also:

She then slept for most of it 🙄🙄🙄🤣😂
I have a lovely drool stain on my leg 🙄🤣😂

Tour was great, but thanks to the sleeping toddler I didn’t get many photos:
#1 Son stayed relatively engaged until he wasn’t selected to drive it in the water then we lost his attention sadly.
Our duck boat either clipped or got clipped by a silver thing. Took 10 minutes to exchange details, but fortunately that was the only excitement.
After the tour we headed to lunch.

We got the kids cheesy pasta (#1 Son) and sliders (Tiny Tyrant) and her eyes lit up when she saw it:

As we were at The Cheesecake Factory we had to get pudding no?
Jo was full, so he ordered the healthy option of strawberries:
😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂
Whereas I went straight for the white chocolate macadamia nut cheesecake:

So. Good.

We also had to do some boring life admin which did include confirming we can get the Tesla – without losing our place in the queue!!!!!
Cue ecstatic wiggly dancing from me.
And lastly, #1 Son being so darn cute as Big Brother my heart just melted:

Our plan is now to make the most of daddy’s remaining time off before he starts his new job (in between life change related admin, which never ends – or at least that’s how it seems!)
So we are going to do the bus tour of Boston today which includes a duck boat – only Jo has been on one of those so it’s going to be interesting.
The Tiny Tyrant is still croupy but we’re hoping that fresh air will help her feel better.

In more mundane news I have worked out how to make the tea tolerable (doubling up the teabags works) and Jo has cooked his first ever meal stateside – we’ve been so exhausted it’s been takeaway all the way so far:
Might not look much but it was tasty.

The Tiny Tyrant was a bit croupy last night, and a Comcast man is coming around noon to (hopefully) fix the damn wifi so we’ve decided to take it easy today.
So I thought the curious amongst the audience might like to see our temporary housing.

The master bedroom and ensuite (avec Tiny Tyrant):

The wonder that is a fully walk-in closet:

(It also contains the cat’s water fountain)
Our main room:
The view from the main room:
The kid’s room – yes #1 Son does indeed have his own double bed – he’s been thrilled with that:

The kitchen area:

There is also a bathroom. American baths are low down. I think it will not be long before I am chasing a buck nekkid Tiny Tyrant around because she’s climbed out 🙄😳
This post has been brought to you by the power of WIFI!!!
Oh Internet how I have missed thee.